Opposition chorus grows in Assam over fears of legitimate voters being left out

In the memorandum, representatives of the parties requested directions to District Election Officers and Electoral Registration Officers to “summarily reject the bulk objections” and the “illegal objections” without calling people for hearings and “without harassing them”, and to take action against the objectors who have filed “the illegal and unlawful bulk objections”.

They also asked that “reasonable time” be granted for hearings in cases of “any genuine objection” filed against voters already part of the draft electoral roll.

The memorandum also referred to remarks made by Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Saturday, when questioned by reporters about the filing of bulk objections. Sarma had brushed off these occurrences, saying that notices had been served to ‘Miyas’, pejoratively referring to Bengali-origin Muslims, based on such objections to “keep them under pressure”.

“There is no controversy over the Special Revision. Which Hindu has got notice? Which Assamese Muslim has got notice? Notices have been served to Miyas and such people. Otherwise, they will walk all over our heads… We are giving them trouble… They have to understand that at some level, people of Assam are resisting them,” he had said.

Referring to these remarks, the Opposition parties stated in their memorandum that “such a statement is arbitrary, mala fide, and wholly unconstitutional, as it betrays predetermined intent to target a specific community and undermines the neutrality of the electoral process,” and asked the CEO to “restrain all officials including the Chief Minister of Assam from frustrating and interfering with the SR exercise in Assam by deleting the names of genuine voters.”

Ahead of Assembly elections this year, Assam is undergoing a Special Revision of electoral rolls — a modified version of Summary Revision in which the key component was house-to-house visits by BLOs to conduct physical verification of the voters in the existing lists.

Based on these, 4,78,992 deceased electors have been identified for deletion; and 5,23,680 “shifted” voters and 53,619 duplicate entries were identified for correction by BLOs.

A claims and objections filing period ended on January 22, during which individuals could object to the inclusion of an individual in the electoral roll on the grounds that they have passed away or no longer live in the area of that polling station, on the basis of which a hearing is conducted.

These have to be disposed of by February 2, after which a final list will be published on February 10.